


Ripples

by FrazzledDragon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, angry chat is scary chat, chat doesn't know celebrities, i'll try to keep up with the tags as i write more, lore?? who knows, mermaid au, mild sweary bois, miraculous vs not, two kingdoms at war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-09-13 04:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16885647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrazzledDragon/pseuds/FrazzledDragon
Summary: Marinette is a princess of the Plain People.Adrien is the protégé of the leader of the Miraculous People.The Plain People do NOT like the Miraculous People.The Miraculous People just want to be treated like people.Things get a little messy.





	1. Chapter 1

    Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Princess of the Plain People, felt something that looked suspiciously like an ornate dagger pierce her side with force and power, but the pain didn’t hit until a moment later. She felt her upper body lose all it’s tension, a cry for help dying on her lips as tears slipped down her cheeks, unbeckoned and unwanted. She was a princess for crying out loud. Such improper emotion in public was unsightly. Even if she was being attacked.

Her assailant, who wore a grotesque, macabre mask vaguely resembling a murky purple butterfly, grinned from beneath the mask. “Your luck has run out, little Ladybird.”

“Who… Who are you?” She gasped, her vision going blurry. Her head flopped back painfully as the assailant slammed her wheelchair in the balcony railing, the smell of the sea, dozens of meters below, wafting up to her. So this is what it felt like to be stabbed. No wonder people avoided it so desperately. It was wholly unpleasant.

“I’m Hawkmoth. I fight for the Miraculous people. Your death ensures someone will pay for your people's’ choices and that your reign will not bring further pain to my people.”

And with that, he pulled his dagger from her side. Showing incredible strength that came with being a Miraculous person, he lifted her wheelchair up and over the railing, tipping her over the edge and watching her fall into the water with a loud  _ splash! _

Hawkmoth stripped his mask, cleaned and hid the dagger, and strode back into the gala, slipping seamlessly into the crowd, past Marinette’s parents and knights. Stabbing her hadn’t been strictly necessary, as a flimsy invalid without use of their legs wasn’t going to be the best of swimmers, especially after a fall like that, but her people had taken his wife from him. Someone had to pay. Might as well have been her, gullible, racist, and ignorant. 

Lady Nathalie Sancoeur, another hidden-in-plain-sight Miraculous with whom he had found himself rather fond of, sidled up next to him and hooked her arm in his. She laughed at something he didn’t say and grinned flirtily as she pressed her lips against his ear. “Is it done?” she asked, as though her only intention was to ensure the twosome got a room reservation. Her Miraculous manifestation, a creature vaguely the shape of a bird, pressed subtly against his own manifestation, a moth, mirroring their owners.

“Yes,” Hawkmoth, or as he was better known in this crowd, Sir Gabriel Agreste, said with a grin. “And it should be perfect,” as though he hadn’t just tipped a crippled teenager into the ocean to drown.

“Perfect,” Lady Nathalie smirked, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Now, whisk us out of here, darling. The night is young.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Adrien :)

“Hey, wake up… C’mon, you’re okay… You’re okay… You shouldn’t be in any pain… Wake up, please…” A voice simultaneously smooth and raspy lulled her mind into wakefulness.

She sat straight up as she hit the water again. Her eyes were wide open, but all she could see were the stars and the wispy clouds that had filled the night sky. It was the last thing she saw, but she supposed she should be grateful it wasn’t that awful mask.

“Hey, you’re okay! I promise! Hey! Calm down, you’ll tear open your wound again! Please, you’re safe with me.”

Marinette’s bluebell eyes refocused and she gasped for breath as she realized where she was.

Where she was… well, she didn’t know and that was terrifying.

As a princess, she had travelled all over Europe, all over the world. In the battle against the Miraculous people, she needed to align herself to as many people as possible. It helped if one had a basic understanding of their countries. As a top strategist in the war, even at her young age, it paid to recognize places by the small things.

She had no idea where she was. She didn’t even know where to start.

Then she glanced down and noticed the bubble around her mouth. 

_ Underwater, _ her mind whispered before her panic caught up with her.

She screamed. That was  _ Miraculous  _ magic, and no self-respecting princess of the Plain would be caught  _ dead _ anywhere near such rot. She tried to claw it off of her, but her arms were weak and limp, not responding to her commands. Her side was  _ killing  _ her. The guy said no pain, but he was clearly delusional.

“Hey, calm down! That bubble’s the only reason you’re alive! If you’re really insistent on drowning, I can ask the nurse to remove it, but seeing as you’re three hundred fathoms under, I doubt your abilities to survive the swim.”

She paused. Though her heart wanted to dispute the fact that she couldn’t make it, one look her legs and she stopped struggling against it. Even if she  _ could  _ use her legs like when she was young, there was no chance she could make it to the surface before she drowned.

Then, for the first time since she awoke, her eyes hovered to her captor, floating above her the bed, his iridescent, long, black, tail occasionally flicking behind him as his hand, scaly and black with claws on every finger, scratching a the back of his head. His eyes, slitted and chartreuse, were trained on her. It was as though he were wearing a mask, glittering, black scales covering his cheeks from eyebrow to cheekbone. 

A Miraculous person.

And he had  _ saved _ her.

“Who…. Who are you?” She gurgled. He didn’t wear a bubble, his gills allowing him to breathe without it.

“You can call me Chat Noir, milady. Names have power and mine is no different. And who might you be?”

Maybe Miraculous people had magic that could bewitch with real names, she pondered for a moment. “L-Ladybug,” she whispered a moment later, looking around. They were in a small cave, lit by bioluminescent coral. The walls of the cave were covered in different growths of coral and it was kind of… beautiful, in a completely treasonous, disgusting way, of course.

“You took the quite the fall, Ladybug.”

She blinked. She was a princess. No torture or kindness could pry secrets from her. But there was no denying facts. “Yes.”

“And you had been stabbed,” Chat Noir prodded, swimming in a small circle. He swam with the kind of grace that only true power and elegance could bring, the scales twinkling in the dim light. It was hypnotic, truly entrancing. Marinette struggled to focus.

“Yes,” she said again. She felt dizzy all of the sudden, and a pressure was building up in her head. She bit her lip, trying to conceal the fact she was struggling from her captor.

“You’re a plain person, aren’t you?” he pressed. “I haven’t seen your manifestation at all.”

“My… My what?” She grimaced, pressing a weak hand to her forehead.  It really did feel like it was about to explode.

“Are… Are you in pain?” He asked, swimming closer to her.

She wanted to raise her arms in defense, but her side and head hurt too badly to warrant the effort. “Yes,” she finally squeaked, her head pounding as though someone was pounding on her skull with a life-sized hammer. No act, no title, no prestige was worth this level of agony.

“Why isn’t the magic working? You shouldn’t be in any pain! Ambrosia is the best healer we have!”

“M-My… my… my anklet…” she murmured, her vision going blurry and dark. “Protects… from internal… internal… magic.”

“Dammit!” He swore, hissing as he clawed the anklet away. “AMBROSIA!” He yelled, swimming out of the cave. “AMBROSIA SHE HAD A CHARM!”

Marinette was finding it more and more difficult to stay upright. Everything burned like fire and she could see her blood soaking her clothes and staining the water around her. 

Ambrosia, a long, teal-tailed Miraculous person with bright ginger hair swam into the room. She was older than Chat Noir, probably an adult to his adolescence if she had to guess. She, too, had scales surrounding her eyes. Marinette was too woozy to keep her eyes open any longer, her eyes falling shut as she fell forward.

 

The next time she woke, Chat Noir’s nose was centimeters from hers. Both of them yelled, but Marinette, now realizing how much better she felt, recovered first.

She looked down her dress, a party dress, floor-length and a pretty amaranth tint, one side stained darker. “I… I suppose I owe you a thank you,” she said eventually. “I suppose you just saved my life.”

“You suppose correctly,” Chat Noir replied with grin. “You were almost too far gone by the time Ambrosia figured out what was wrong, but she managed to pull you back from the edge.” There was something about the way he spoke, even underwater, that spoke to certain kind of easy-going-ness. If this boy was stressed, she wasn’t to know it. If this boy was lying, he was the most excellent liar she had ever had the misfortune of coming across.

But that alone raised several issues. This… almost failing, didn’t match what she had been told about the Miraculous people, not at all. Miraculous people were clever, creeping savages that only wanted world domination. They could do anything under the sun and had no limits to their powers. If they wanted to save you, they could. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t. They were inhuman and terrifying, and they only spoke in trickery and lies. They had no souls, no emotions, nor any sort of ability for empathy.

Their  _ only _ weakness was that at their most powerful, they were aquatic. They were more powerful on land than any average Plain person, but they didn’t have access to any of the fantastic powers that they did in their aquatic form. Her grandfather, who was wild and arrogant at times but at heart a good king, had told her that this was the only thing stopping them from overtaking the world. There was too many places without enough waterways for them to get close.

“Thank… Thank you, then.” Marinette was struggling to process the difference between the boy in front of her and the people her grandparents had told her horror stories about. “What… What comes next?”

Chat Noir’s head fell to one side in confusion. His feline-looking ears, black and elegant, followed suit in the most mesmerizing manner. Everything was so swishy underwater. “What do you mean?”

“You… You saved me. I’m here now. Me, being here, is about the most treasonous thing I can think of. Most Plain people would consider me a captive. What do you have planned for me next?”

Chat Noir grinned, showing off glinting, serrated, sharp teeth. “Captive? Pfft!” He laughed now, a truly magical sound underwater. “You’re no one’s captive! Who do you think we are, sadists?! Why would we heal you if we didn’t intend to let you free? That doesn’t make any sense! You can leave right now, if you want. Swim up toward the light. The bubble spell with break as soon as you breach the surface. I can’t promise your injuries won’t cause you further trouble, or that your people won’t immediately burn you at the stake for coming out of the water, but you can if you want.”

Marinette shivered. She had been forced to attend many burnings, both of people she believed to be innocent and people she did not. She had petitioned her parents many times to change the custom, as burnings were unsightly at best and inhumane and terrible at worst, and they had tried, but as soon as it was outlawed, dozens sprang up all over Europe. Ironically, there were less burnings when it was legally practiced then when it was illegal. So, they legalized it again, and the excessive burnings stopped.

But, as terrible as it was, Chat Noir was right. If she breached the surface and  _ anyone _ saw her before she was clean and dry, it didn’t matter who she was or what she stood for, she would burn. And she had to imagine it would be more unpleasant to experience than it was to watch, and it was pretty unpleasant to watch.

“How much longer will it take until I’m completely, for sure, healed?” She asked finally.

“Maybe a few days. Ambrosia is used to dealing with pretty complex wounds, but she also has a lot of patients and only so much energy.”

“Okay.”

“Are you hungry?” He inquired, glancing outside the cave at the light streaming down into the water. Marinette realized that that was probably how they told time. Clocks wouldn’t work down here, and now that she thought about it, she didn’t know if she could tell what time of day it was by the sun alone, even if she tried. 

“A little.” She didn’t see the advantage of lying to him. She was starving, since she didn’t eat at the gala and she didn’t know how long she had been here. “But… Can I eat? Considering the hole in my side?” It didn’t hurt anymore, but she didn’t dare try to get a better look at it. 

“I’ll ask Ambrosia. Either you’ll eat like normal, or I’ll find someone who can make you full.”

“Miraculous people can do that?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“Well, not  _ all _ Miraculous people. Some can. Depends on their manifestation. Everyone’s got a specialty. Just gotta know what yours is.”

Marinette frowned. “What’s a manifestation?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a dull chapter (sorry) but you get more plot/background stuff, and Marinette is real shook when she realizes she may or may not EMPATHIZE with Chat :D

“What’s a manifestation?”

Chat Noir seemed vaguely pleased that she was willing to learn. “Some people call them kwamis. They’re these little creatures, like a destined best friend. All Miraculous people get them around adolescence. There’s a whole book about them if you’ve got a few decades to read. There’s a limited number of them, like two hundred in total, so there’s lots of repeats. Some are rarer than others, luck of the draw and whatnot. My kwami, the Cat, is one of the rarest of them all.”

“Hence the name, Chat Noir.” She wanted to ignore the creature before her, but he was volunteering her fantastic inside information and it was her duty to provide for him.

“Yep,” he smiled, revealing sharp canines. Just like a cat’s. And now that she was looking for the similarities, she noticed the dark fins on his head that vaguely resembled a cat’s ears. 

“What’s the rarest kwami?”

“The ladybug, actually. Then it’s the cat, the fox, the turtle, and the bee. There’s a lot more, but those are the only ones I know off the top of my head.”

Marinette nodded, mentally filing the information away. Once she had bathed in bleach and covered herself in new charms, her parents would be ecstatic at this new information. It was rare new information about the Miraculous people came in.

“What’s your specialty?” She inquired, trying to not seem too suspicious.

Fortunately, Chat Noir didn’t appear to be suspicious of her at all, smiling encouragingly and eagerly answering. “Destruction. I’m a demolition expert. The cat kwami is typically paired with the ladybug kwami. They are masters of creation, you see. In theory, cats and ladybugs are soulmates, but the only ladybug alive today is over eighty years old, so I guess I’m out of luck. Which, I suppose is fitting, as the cat kwamis are supposed to be the least lucky kwamis of all; opposite, once again, to ladybugs.”

“That’s too bad.” Internally, she was trying to figure out why a shred of sympathy was aching in her heart, but she wrote it off as side-effects of the magic, and refocused. It was definitely  _ not _ because she also feared being alone for the rest of her life. She had met every prince on earth. None of them were right, as much as she wanted them to be. And the ones she could see herself tolerating for any length of time were much too old. It looked as though she would be alone for the rest of her life, but that was definitely not why she felt sympathy for the boy, not much older than her, in front of her.

Chat Noir’s ear-fin flicked as Ambrosia swam by. “AMBROSIA!” he called, smiling as she turned in a panic. “Sorry, ma’am. Ladybug’s hungry and I was wondering if she could eat food yet.”

“Yes, Chat, that should be just fine. Take her down to the floor. There are some good in-between restaurants down there.”

Chat Noir nodded excitedly. “Will do! Thanks, ma’am!”

“The floor?” Marinette spoke up. “Where’s that?”

“The floor is the most beautiful place in the city, on land or in the water!” He grinned excitedly. “You’re going to  _ love  _ it!”

“You’ve been on land?” Marinette asked suddenly, concern washing over her. The guards caught Miraculous people trying to come on land all the time, but they had been sure that there were no other gaps. No other way for the Miraculous people to get on land.

“Not a lot. It’s too dangerous. My father doesn’t want me getting burned,” He said quietly, and almost a little accusingly. “Not that I particularly want to get burned either. But it would be nice to spend sometime in the sun. I like being warm and you don’t get that down here.”

“Oh…” Marinette felt a hot rush of shame wash over her, like she had never felt before.

“Let’s go!” Chat Noir swam toward the entrance to the little cave. 

Marinette watched him for a moment, waiting for him to catch on.

“Oh… Right… You can’t swim like I can. Here!” He offered her his hand, which was clawed and scaly. “Hold on!”

And against her best judgement, Marinette grabbed onto his hand and let him pull her through the water.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Stage Right: Alya Cesaire as Rena Rouge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long.
> 
> I have no excuse.

He pulled her out into open water, and honestly it was _gorgeous_. Just like he had promised. The Miraculous people had made a _beautiful_ city, colorful with coral and bio-luminescent. There were _so_ _many_ Miraculous people, swimming around in the fading daylight. Their eyes lit up in the dark.

She couldn’t begin to recognize their manifestations. Could not _begin_.

Chat pulled her toward the floor, toward a larger cave with small little alcoves she realized were _booths_ to the restaurant. Miraculous people were floating in the little bubble-like rock formations, chatting animatedly.

“We call them in-betweens because they were modelled after surface restaurants and they serve food from both worlds. It helps coax people not risk going to the surface. Almost everyone under the surface has lost someone to the burnings or even worse fates. You get tired of _losing_ , you know?”

Marinette shuddered. “I don’t.” It was true - she _didn’t_ know. She had few friends on the surface, and few living family members. She didn’t know loss, not like he did. The closest thing to loss she knew was when she got very sick in her preteens and lost the use of her legs, for no reason any doctor could determine. One day, she was fine, the next… her legs were useless, feelingless. Heavy burdens she’d always need and have but never be able to use.

Chat’s eyes narrowed at her in what looked like anger. But, his eyes reappraised her. “I suppose you don’t.” He smiled a little. “How very candid of you.” He pulled her closer to the restaurant, and another Miraculous person, whose curving horns vaguely resembled a ram, lead them to a table.

“What manifestation does Ambrosia have?” Marinette asked quietly, eyes wandering the restaurant and its occupants.

Chat smiled eagerly, green eyes twinkling. “Guess.”

“I don’t like guessing games.”

He grinned, canines glittering as he revealed them. He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall of the booth. “I’m not going to tell you until you try and guess first.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, but crossed her arms and pushed against the table and recentered herself. “I’m not guessing.”

The Miraculous person in front of her starting cleaning his claws. “Alright.”

“Okay.”

It was silent for a solid few minutes, when the waitress swam up to them for their order. Marinette looked to Chat, unsure of what to order. There were no menus. She was too nervous to ask. Fortunately, Chat winked and ordered something for her. Though she had no idea what he ordered, she was a little relieved, nonetheless.

“Fine, I’ll guess.”

Chat smiled happily.

“Dolphin?”

He chuckled at her guess, his surprize evident. “Interesting, but no.”

“Can it be any living thing?”

He nodded, fins on his head swaying. “Any animal.”

“Coral.”

Chat grinned, and clapped his hands slowly, though the sound was muted in the water. “Good job. Coral, and her specialty is healing. She can provide conditions for any other person to live. Kind of like creation, except she specifically is tuned into other’s needs. Unfortunately, the ability is extremely draining and she, like all coral miraculouses, tires very quickly. That’s why it was such a close call. She was near passing out from exhaustion when she was done.”

“Do all Miraculous people have such hindrances?” Marinette asked, intrigued, amazed. She didn’t realize how much her saving her life had cost another being, even if it was a Miraculous person.

Chat frowned. “Of course we do. We’re not gods. All powers have costs. Does reading a book not expend energy? What do they tell you about us, on the surface? I haven’t been above enough to know.”

Marinette, her cheeks darkening. “Do all Miraculous people have scales around their eyes? What is their purpose?” She asked, ignoring his questions.

His expression turned sad, somber. Sharply clawed fingers came up to feel the scales. “We didn’t used to have them. Back when the world was at peace, there were no masks. They serve no real purpose, if that’s what you were asking. When the Plain people decided we were no longer allowed to occupy the earth, the manifestations seemed to sense we’d need a way of protecting our identities on land. They make it so we’re less likely to be discovered on land, so we can hide.”

She sombered too. “I’m sorry, Chat.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. It wasn’t her fault. Maybe she was apologizing for when she was going to betray him and share all this information with her parents and their generals. Maybe she was apologizing for the fact that though he loved the sun, he had to hide away from it. Maybe she was apologizing for the fact he thought he was right. Maybe she was apologizing for the fact that she did too.

“It’s alright. What’s your favorite part about the surface?”

Her eyes clouded, her thoughts jumping to her last few moments on land. The moth mask and the knife embedded in her torso. “I… I like the night,” she admitted softly. “I like the stars.”

“What do stars look like?” He asked excitedly, somberness gone. “I’ve never seen the stars. It’s always been cloudy when I’ve gone up. My father forbids me from going anywhere _near_ the surface if I can avoid it. When I last went on land,  I only spent a couple hours there.”

“Like a blanket of little candles,” she stumbles. How does one describe something so complex and beautiful? “An unending ocean of the darkest blue with little white and yellow lights that make you feel insignificant and important all at once.”

He smiles, warmly. “I like the sound of that. I’ll make sure to see it sometime.”

She should say nothing, but instead her mouth betrays her. “Be careful. They’re always upping security.”

His smile softens, losing some of the definition. “I will. Thank you, Ladybug… Do… Do you know why your people hate us?”

She blinks. “We hate you because we are taught from a very young age that you are powerful and cruel and savage and manipulative. We are told you want nothing more than to destroy us, to topple the Plain people and sink the lands beneath the sea.”

Chat’s jaw drops. “I… We’d… We’d _never_ do that! I don’t know what flap-jack of an idiot told you that, but Ladybug, Miraculous people _don’t_ want to fight you! We don’t want to destroy you, manipulate you! We just want peace. This war has gone on so long because only one side is truly fighting! We only defend ourselves! Only recently has an Miraculous person tried to do anything aggressive in return, and he is only one out of almost two million! And he is wrong! If I could do anything to stop him, I would!”

Marinette’s face hardens into an emotion she can’t recognize. “That’s what we’re taught you’d say.”

There’s silence for a long moment, the waitress bringing them their food. Marinette figures out how to eat the bread and cheese quickly, and the silence persists until the meal is finished.

“Ladybug, your teachers are wrong. They were wrong about our powers, wrong about our customs! They are wrong again! _They_ are manipulating _you_! I’m… I’m not a soldier, Ladybug. I’m not here to interrogate you. I don’t care what you know or don’t know. I’m not going to betray you, lie to you. I… I just want my people to stop dying. I lost my mom to the fires, Ladybug. She just… disappeared, and then they threw her charcoal corpse back to the sea. She still had the necklace my father had gifted her around her neck. I just want it all to stop.”

She was silent.

Then another miraculous person, with a manifestation of Marinette would guess to be a fox, swam up to their booth and immediately started swearing.

“Rena, you okay?” Chat asked, attention diverted immediately. “Ladybug, this is Rena Rouge. Rena, this is the Plain person that fell into the water yesterday.”

“Chat, do you _try_ to make colossal mistakes or is it just your luck?” Rena snarls, orange eyes trained aggressively on the other girl. Black scales like eyebrows, with orange surrounding. She had orange ear-fins, much like Chat’s, though hers were white-tipped. Her hair was long and auburn with white tips, and though it flowed behind her, it seemed intent on staying in tail-like groups. Nine in total, if Marinette counted right. Her wide hips led to an orange tail, which was thrashing angrily beneath her.

“What do you mean?!” Chat growled angrily, his ear-fins laying further back against his head.

“Of all the people you could save and nurture… Dipshit, that’s the _Princess_ !” Rena hissed. “Princess Marinette Dupain-Cheng of the Plain People. Ya know, the one that _Hawkmoth_ supposedly _assassinated_ yesterday!” Marinette felt a shiver go down her spine, sensing her immediate danger.

The blood seemed to drain from Chat’s face. “Oh shit… Oh _shit_ …” He turned to Marinette, ear-fins pressed all the way to his scalp. His lips were drawn back in a terrifying snarl, his pupils almost invisible slits. His tail was slashing through the water powerfully, his anger palpable. Quick as lightning, he had her pressed up against the wall, claws almost tearing through the collar of her dress. The Chat who liked guessing games and sunshine was gone; in his place, a feral, barely human creature. The monster she had been warned about. “ _You didn’t tell me you were the Princess,_ ” he rasped, cat-like snarls slipping out between his words. It might have been her imagination, but she was sure his fangs were longer.

Marinette was not a damsel though, and was not one to be intimidated easily. She released a snarl of her own. “What good would it have done? Would you have told me, if you were in my shoes? What would you have done?”

“ _I would have let you die_ .” There’s no uncertainty in his gaze, in his posture. “ _Might as well rectify that now.”_ His eyes flash, and where his hand was now there is a dark void. Marinette felt her heart drop into her stomach as the void nears her throat.

But now, Rena lays a clawed hand on his arm. “Chat, that is not the answer. You’re not a killer. You’ve never even used your cataclysm on anyone. There’s no telling how strong it is. And… she’s not wrong. We would both have done the same thing. Lied to protect ourselves? Hell, we _do_ do that, every time we go to the surface. You can’t be mad at her for wanting to survive anymore than she can be at us. We’re not monsters and…” Rena pauses, seeming to swallow something foul. “And neither is she.”

Chat’s gaze flicks to Rena, seemingly just as angry as before, but the void fades. “ _How is she_ not _a monster? She’s just like all the rest._ ”

“But… I can’t believe I’m saying this… She’s not… not like all the rest. She’s… She’s the one who tried to stop the burnings, Chat. Succeeded, actually. The rest of her kind were the ones who ruined her efforts. But _she_ tried.” Rena seemed reluctant to admit even that, but there was a grudging respect in her eyes. She held her hand out to Marinette, still pinned to the wall. “I’m Rena Rouge. Investigative reporter. I know a lot about you.”

Marinette shook her hand, trying to calm down. This week had been full of too many threats to her life and honestly it was a little overwhelming. “I’m Princess Marinette Dupain-Cheng the first, heir to the throne of the Plain People. I don’t know what I know anymore.”


End file.
